So Ghana has done it. Parliament has passed a bill criminalising LGBTQ+ identities, threatening imprisonment for those who so much as identify as gay. The UK Foreign Office, naturally, is aghast. It urges Commonwealth reform, tut-tutting from its glass house built on imperial bones. How predictable. How tedious.
Let us strip away the cant. The United Kingdom, that great purveyor of human rights lectures, has a history of selective morality. It was the British who exported homophobic laws to its colonies via the infamous Section 377. Now it feigns shock when the postcolonial world exercises sovereignty in ways it disapproves. This is not about rights. It is about power. It is about the West dictating terms to nations it once ruled, demanding they adopt the latest fashion in sexual identity while ignoring the rotting fabric of its own society.
Consider the timeline. The British Empire imposed Victorian morality on Africa, criminalising same-sex acts. Now, with the moral pendulum swinging back, London expects Ghana to snap into alignment with 21st century progressive orthodoxy. But why should it? Ghana is a sovereign state. Its people, through their elected representatives, have decided that the LGBTQ+ agenda conflicts with their cultural and religious values. One might disagree, but to demand compliance from a former colony is the height of arrogance. It is the colonial impulse in a new guise: the white man’s burden, rebranded as human rights.
The UK Foreign Office’s statement is a masterclass in hypocrisy. It calls for Commonwealth reform, but reform to what end? To impose a single moral standard across 56 nations with wildly different histories, religions, and social fabrics? The Commonwealth was a club for former colonies; now it risks becoming a rubber stamp for Western liberalism. If Ghana is to be sanctioned for its laws, then why not Saudi Arabia, a Commonwealth ally? Why not the United States, where several states have passed anti-trans legislation? The selectivity is not accidental. It is strategic.
Let us not pretend this is about compassion. If the UK truly cared about Ghanaian LGBTQ+ individuals, it would engage in quiet diplomacy, not public scolding. It understands that public pressure often hardens resolve. No, this is about virtue signalling to a domestic audience. It is about the British government distracting from its own failures: a crumbling NHS, a housing crisis, and a cost-of-living disaster. Wrapping oneself in the rainbow flag is easier than fixing potholes.
What Ghana’s bill reveals is the fragility of the human rights consensus. The West thought history had ended. It believed that liberal values were inevitable, that all societies would evolve towards Western norms. But history has not ended. It has resumed. Nations are rediscovering their own paths, their own moral codes. The era of globalisation is giving way to re-nationalisation. Ghana’s bill is a symptom of this shift. It is a declaration of independence from Western moral hegemony.
Does that make me a supporter of the bill? No. I find the criminalisation of identity abhorrent. But I also recognise that lecturing sovereign nations from a position of historical guilt is unproductive. If the West wants to influence others, it must lead by example. And what example does it set? A culture that has lost its moral compass, that oscillates between hedonism and puritanism, that cannot define what a woman is. It is no wonder traditional societies recoil.
The Commonwealth is at a crossroads. It can become a vehicle for cultural imperialism, or it can become a genuine forum for dialogue. The UK must choose between its desire to preach and its respect for difference. If it chooses the former, it will only hasten the Commonwealth’s irrelevance. Ghana’s bill is a test. Let us see if London learns anything from its own history. I doubt it.
